Page 144 of Witchlight
They made Nadje think of when he’d been inside the Bloodwitch’s body. Of that smell he’d sensed like sun and sand and auburn leaves falling. That had been Sirmaya’s scent; and here it was again—not a smell, but a feeling. A heat. An embrace.
Again, it did not feel like a battle to end times. It felt, instead, like a battle to begin them.
“You chose the Rook King.” Rakel fixed her bulbous eyes on Nadje. Only one still appeared to be working. “Instead of us.”
“I chose Sirmaya.”
“And why do you assume I have not chosen Her too?”
Nadje’s brow furrowed. Something about that question prodded his ancient brain and ancient soul.
“Sirmaya gave us all this power,” Rakel went on. “It was only natural we would wish to use it.”
“But that was notwhyShe gave us this power.”
“You used it greedily enough a thousand years ago.” Rakel tried to smile. It revealed torn gums and shrunken teeth. Her breaths heaved.
A hot wind crossed Nadje, rustling at the oaks. Playing with the asphodels. “Yes,” he agreed. “I used it greedily, and now I do not wish to.”
“So what will you do, then?”Rasp. Cough.“I will die and be reborn. But you? What willyoudo now?”
Nadje’s frown cut deeper across his face. She would indeed be reborn.That was how their Paladin souls worked. But he had no easy answer. The Lament simply said:In light, twelve will meet on lands long contested, while in darkness, the shadow-ender will topple nightmares and the world-starter will build us anew.
The Twelve were not here yet.Or at least,he thought vaguely,not the Twelve Paladins.
The wind whispered louder. Tree limbs shook, spraying fresh shadows across Rakel. Lifting fallen leaves and dust.And,he noted,ringing like the purest of bells.
“Ah,” Nadje said on a heavy sigh. Because of course Rakel was right: they both believed that they served Sirmaya. Just as both the Rook King and Ragnor the General had believed they served her too. Two sides to one knife. Two truths that were not really true.
Nadje tightened his grip on Rakel, and something like sadness twined through him. Sorrow for all the centuries it had taken, all the lives and mistakes and effort, cycling again and again because no one ever had thought to step outside.
But here he was, outside. Feeling his goddess in the clammy, cold touch of Rakel against him. In the earth under his knees. In the breeze and the leaves and this small meadow drenched in sunlight. And with those sensations, he thought again of what a Sightwitch from long ago had seen.
In light, twelve will meet on lands long contested, while in darkness, the shadow-ender will topple nightmares and the world-starter will build us anew.
“I am not going to kill you,” Nadje said quietly. “Yes, it would give you that new body you have hungered for… but it would not bring you back to Sirmaya. It would not bring either of us back to Her. And that, I think, is what both of us really desire.
“We have earned our rest, Paladin of Water. Do you not think we should claim it?”
Rakel’s lips shook. Something almost like tears glossed her fishy eyes. “How?”
“With my help. I can take us both there.”
“And what will happen?”
“I do not know,” he said truthfully. “But I think it is and always has been a question of balance. When it was just the Twelve, we did not steward magic as we should have. When it was just humans, they did not either. The Rook King wished to give it back to the Twelve. The General wished to leave it with the people. Maybe we should simply give it to the goddess instead and let Her decide.”
The sigh that slid from Rakel’s throat was one that weighed too heavy. That carried centuries atop it and sought only freedom, only solace. She had let anger stew inside her because it had been the only way to exist inside that Well beside the sea, where her tides had been so close but never within reach.
And Nadje, he had drowned too—but it hadn’t stoked a rage inside him. At least not a rage so vast as Rakel’s. Not a rage he hadn’t been able to claw back from thanks to his time inside the Bloodwitch’s body, with its unique history that had given Nadje far more than he’d deserved.
“I want to see Her again,” Rakel said.
“Yes,” Nadje agreed. “I do too.” As he said this, it occurred to him that he already had—or at least that he had seen part of Her, when he’d found the dark-giver and watched her end Portia. He knew now that the dark-giver was nothing more than a tool of the Rook King.
But then, what was the Rook King other than a tool of Sirmaya?
Another sigh from Rakel. Another collapse of centuries and civilizations and pain. “Yes, Nadje. I choose Sirmaya. I choose to let Her start anew.”
